Tech Edge, Mobile Learning In The Classroom - Episode 24, Language Apps

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08/08/2016 Added

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Technology Information: Applications for Language

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[00:00:00.000]Coming up on Mobile Learning in the Classroom,
[00:00:02.514]language apps.
[00:00:03.347](upbeat music)
[00:00:16.833]Hi, my name is Guy Trainin.
[00:00:18.512]And I'm Zoe Falls.
[00:00:19.679]And this is Mobile Learning in the Classroom
[00:00:21.370]from Tech EDGE and today we're talking about language apps,
[00:00:24.327]and we're talking about it from
[00:00:26.243]a learning a foreign language perspective,
[00:00:29.049]and learning English,
[00:00:30.276]so it has a few pieces that we want to put together.
[00:00:34.182]So, I'm using Duolingo,
[00:00:36.701]and Duolingo you can use on a laptop,
[00:00:40.439]or on a tablet, or on a phone.
[00:00:42.814]I currently have it up on my laptop.
[00:00:45.429]And, I've gone through and I've just selected Spanish,
[00:00:48.684]but there are numerous languages you can pick from.
[00:00:52.625]And, what I like about this,
[00:00:54.962]I'm gonna go ahead and go into a lesson,
[00:00:57.868]is it includes the written text,
[00:01:01.972]it includes a picture,
[00:01:03.359]and then it also does audio.
[00:01:07.246]And, so you can have that fully,
[00:01:10.403]sort of, language immersive experience in it.
[00:01:13.317]And it starts you out really simple,
[00:01:15.609]and it tells you whether or not you're right.
[00:01:18.873]And, you just go through and you set daily goals.
[00:01:22.021]So, I currently have mine at the default,
[00:01:24.733]which I think is 10 minutes a day
[00:01:26.327]of going in and going through these different lessons.
[00:01:29.198]And, as you progress through the lessons,
[00:01:30.796]you get closer to where you take a test
[00:01:33.379]and you kind of test your mastery of them.
[00:01:36.699]They have you do multiple things,
[00:01:37.812]so you have to translate into English...
[00:01:44.822]Which I did wrong, "the man eats."
[00:01:46.953]So, make sure that you have the tense correct
[00:01:49.129]and everything else, so it's not just word recognition,
[00:01:53.080]it's full comprehension.
[00:01:59.821]It'll also, again, you can hear the audio goes through
[00:02:04.404]and it reads it to you so you hear it
[00:02:07.159]while you're going through.
[00:02:12.044]It's gonna lose my progress, that's fine.
[00:02:14.364]It'll also tell you what words you've learned,
[00:02:18.060]and then it gives you this graph that shows
[00:02:19.582]how well you know that word,
[00:02:21.676]based on the metrics of going through
[00:02:23.392]the different activities.
[00:02:25.029]But, one of the things you can do,
[00:02:26.768]and that I've seen my students talk about is
[00:02:28.709]they can compete with their friends.
[00:02:30.230]So, what they've had teachers have told them to do
[00:02:32.394]in the past is find people that are
[00:02:34.361]in the same language class you are,
[00:02:36.665]and connect with them
[00:02:38.677]and they you can sort of have that friendly competition
[00:02:41.968]as they go through and try to learn that mastery.
[00:02:46.152]And you can have them, when you sign up with Duolingo,
[00:02:48.420]you can either do it through Facebook,
[00:02:50.155]or they can do it through a gmail account,
[00:02:52.281]or they can just create a Duolingo account.
[00:02:54.133]But the nice thing is it's kind of one of those
[00:02:56.346]"Oh, I can use an account I already have."
[00:02:58.632]So it makes signing up really easy.
[00:03:01.427]And for schools, it makes it nice
[00:03:03.885]because schools are trying to limit the number of logins
[00:03:06.690]that kids would have,
[00:03:07.880]so if they are already using Google, for example,
[00:03:10.337]it makes it really easier.
[00:03:12.183]Especially at the elementary levels,
[00:03:13.606]they're not going to use Facebook,
[00:03:15.085]because there's an age limit
[00:03:16.405]but, if they are using,
[00:03:18.538]for example, our local school district
[00:03:20.053]uses Google Everything.
[00:03:22.016]They love it when there's a Google login
[00:03:24.272]that you can use.
[00:03:25.372]Exactly.
[00:03:26.205]And then, you're there.
[00:03:27.160]And there is a Duolingo for schools.
[00:03:29.460]So, if you go to schools.duolingo.com,
[00:03:32.342]you can create a classroom.
[00:03:34.730]And again, you can choose...
[00:03:35.980]So, this gives you some example
[00:03:37.130]of the various languages you can get.
[00:03:41.229]So, I'm gonna call this "Test Class".
[00:03:44.383]And, you create a classroom.
[00:03:47.294]And that's a Spanish class.
[00:03:48.360]It is a Spanish classroom,
[00:03:50.362]and this is where you import.
[00:03:52.975]You invite your students,
[00:03:54.037]and you can do that through...
[00:03:57.188]Any of the devices.
[00:03:58.219]Any devices.
[00:03:59.165]And so, in this way, you can have that
[00:04:01.509]classroom control
[00:04:02.694]so, at the younger grades,
[00:04:03.967]and with the younger students,
[00:04:05.721]it's a nice way to encourage them to work
[00:04:08.642]on their foreign language outside of the classroom
[00:04:11.200]and you really know
[00:04:12.186]that the lessons they're getting are robust.
[00:04:15.384]They're having that visual input.
[00:04:16.763]They're hearing it,
[00:04:17.877]they have to type it out.
[00:04:20.210]When they're on their phones,
[00:04:21.043]there are ones where you move the words
[00:04:23.032]to create the sentences.
[00:04:25.166]So, they can do it on the go.
[00:04:26.719]And the activities are really engaging,
[00:04:28.198]and I think that's a big part of it is,
[00:04:29.840]it's a game-like environment.
[00:04:31.705]And you have levels and rewards
[00:04:33.237]and all of that,
[00:04:34.179]in a way that keeps pushing them forward
[00:04:36.199]to do a little bit more.
[00:04:38.375]And I do know from work we've done a few years ago,
[00:04:40.465]that kids get really hung-up on those.
[00:04:43.014]Sometimes not positively,
[00:04:44.286]so sometimes they're missing half a star
[00:04:47.471]and they can move onto the next lesson, but they're...
[00:04:49.399]They want that star.
[00:04:50.232]"I want that half star, because I want it,
[00:04:54.029]"because it looks like it's incomplete."
[00:04:56.347]So, we do have to mitigate that
[00:04:58.030]and work with kids about making progress.
[00:05:00.861]But, this is a way to have them keep going
[00:05:04.556]with languages, even outside of classroom,
[00:05:06.735]or if you're in elementary school,
[00:05:08.372]and you don't have a lot of time to work on language,
[00:05:10.541]because our elementary school, maybe unfortunately,
[00:05:13.643]don't have a lot of time with foreign languages,
[00:05:15.588]or we do it as after-school.
[00:05:16.820]This is a way to really augment that learning time
[00:05:19.231]with a lot of time out of classroom,
[00:05:21.627]you can engage parents, and all that.
[00:05:23.510]It can be fantastic.
[00:05:24.859]And the undergraduates that I know,
[00:05:26.212]and they're the ones that actually
[00:05:27.045]told me about this, this app.
[00:05:29.364]They like it because it usually not the same curriculum
[00:05:32.732]that's being used in the classroom,
[00:05:34.821]so they have this secondary source of learning the material
[00:05:38.800]and they can stay up on it over break
[00:05:40.644]and they don't have to lug around their textbook
[00:05:42.737]or worry about flashcards, or other types of things,
[00:05:46.477]'cause it's already built in
[00:05:49.035]and they can have it on their phone.
[00:05:50.876]Yeah, and it transfers with your account,
[00:05:53.121]transfers between devices,
[00:05:54.779]so you're not linked, not tied to any one device.
[00:05:57.533]And it really does work on everything.
[00:05:59.178]It does.
[00:06:00.289]So, a Chromebook is just as good as a phone.
[00:06:03.094]Obviously, a phone is always easier.
[00:06:04.937]A phone or a tablet because you can take it anywhere.
[00:06:07.207]And, so we're going on vacation,
[00:06:08.685]and that really works for us,
[00:06:10.213]but it really is open to whatever device you have.
[00:06:14.893]Or, even access to a device.
[00:06:16.252]So, even a library device, or something like that,
[00:06:18.220]it could work just as well as long as you can log in.
[00:06:21.380]And so, if you log off,
[00:06:23.345]I want to show mine,
[00:06:25.118]which is Phrasal Verbs from Cambridge,
[00:06:28.280]and this one is called the Phrasal Verbs Machine.
[00:06:31.167]They also have Phrasalstein,
[00:06:33.835]which is fantastic as well.
[00:06:36.094]And, as somebody who...
[00:06:39.660]Who had to learn English as a second language,
[00:06:41.820]phrasal verbs are always the more complicated,
[00:06:44.301]one of the more complicated things to learn
[00:06:46.230]because they are not obvious.
[00:06:48.476]There's no system by which you will gain them
[00:06:51.554]except by reading them, seeing them.
[00:06:54.088]So this is a way to get that information.
[00:06:59.056]You can see that you can choose what you want to do.
[00:07:01.038]I want an exercise because that challenges me,
[00:07:03.741]but you can also do just the review.
[00:07:06.197]And what you have is, you have short videos
[00:07:09.519]that look at exactly what it is
[00:07:12.933]and if I touch it, it'll go again
[00:07:16.456]and then I have to choose the phrasal verb
[00:07:18.500]that is connected and this one was,
[00:07:20.606]I think "Point Out",
[00:07:22.011]and you say "OK",
[00:07:23.396]and you get a call that is right,
[00:07:25.208]and you've got attempts and errors on the bottom.
[00:07:27.397]And you can watch it again.
[00:07:30.252]I love the visual appeal that this has,
[00:07:33.418]because it's a lot different than most of the language apps.
[00:07:37.341]Like, Duolingo looked very streamlined and professional.
[00:07:42.176]Serious in a way that this looks a lot more fun.
[00:07:44.976]It has a Steampunk, really, game vibe to it.
[00:07:48.148]And the videos have that kind of Old-World feel,
[00:07:51.993]and it's actually, just kinda pretty to look at.
[00:07:55.397]So, I think it's gonna draw students into it
[00:07:58.795]just for that fact alone.
[00:08:00.406]It's kind of a really clever setup.
[00:08:03.885]And so, if it's wrong,
[00:08:06.309]I get "Oh, you're answer is wrong."
[00:08:09.401]Let's try that again.
[00:08:12.434]The answer is "Set Up".
[00:08:15.267]Okay.
[00:08:18.182]And so I can go to the next one.
[00:08:19.864]So, this is a way to practice.
[00:08:21.896]And it has a fairly rich number of phrases
[00:08:24.825]which is fantastic because each one of them
[00:08:26.529]has a different animation to go with it.
[00:08:28.884]So, this is one, the second one as I said, is...
[00:08:39.912]And I've got it open.
[00:08:41.395]It's Phrasalstein, and it's the same kind of approach.
[00:08:45.497]I've got the view and the exercise,
[00:08:47.763]and if you go to the exercise again,
[00:08:49.073]it's got the similar vibe to it,
[00:08:51.445]but a different...
[00:08:53.903]A different kind of videos.
[00:08:58.570]And now, I think that's blackout.
[00:09:01.962]I would say so. I would say
[00:09:03.363]that's blackout.
[00:09:04.199]We got it right.
[00:09:05.200]We got it right.
[00:09:06.033]So you see, it's a very cool vibe.
[00:09:08.358]A very well thought out.
[00:09:10.369]Lots of options here.
[00:09:12.587]Lots of ways to learn phrasal verbs in English,
[00:09:16.336]and it's a great access to language
[00:09:18.608]that is fun.
[00:09:19.918]That is...
[00:09:23.117]Just creative.
[00:09:24.663]And it's always fun to see apps that are well designed.
[00:09:27.887]And it's really timely for fall.
[00:09:29.857]Like, that's a great thing to introduce for the fall
[00:09:32.196]because it'll align with the holidays that come up
[00:09:35.195]and as the seasons change,
[00:09:37.629]so I think in that, it's just so pretty.
[00:09:41.794]So, today on Mobile Learning in the Classroom
[00:09:44.496]we talked about language apps
[00:09:46.180]and we'll see you next time.
[00:09:47.255](upbeat music)

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Tech Edge, Mobile Learning In The Classroom - Episode 24, Language Apps

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